Monday, 14 October 2013

On Thursday, October 17th, Brian Lassen will hold a seminar at Evira Headquarters, Mustialankatu 3, Viikki, in Kalevi lecture hall, at 15.00-16.00, about EMERGING PARASITIC ZOONOSES IN ESTONIA, AND WHY THE NORTHERN BIG BROTHER SHOULD BE CONCERNED.

The talk will be on emerging, re-emerging and endemic parasitic zoonoses in Estonia, some of them well-known also in Finland, some with evident potential to spread into Finland.

Thursday, 1 August 2013

After three years, EMOP XII will be past - hopefully leaving participants with unforgettable scientific discoveries, theories and understanding. And memories. After the Multicolloquium, it may be a good idea to brew the germinating thoughts at one of the Post EMOP Tours which the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) is planning in collaboration with Turku Touring. A natural, easy and tranquil choice is The Turku Archipelago, to visit some of the more than 20,000 islands of the, by some definitions, largest archipelago in the world, with possibilities to biking, fishing, canoeing, or just relaxing. There is a recent Lonely Planet article that may give an idea how it is like. Just a comment on the cinnamon "korvapuusti" buns; please, don't expect to find them on all breakfast tables. And, while it is true that Finland was the first country in the world to grant unrestricted voting rights to women in 1906, that was before Finland gained its independence from Russia; so the suffragette action had to be accepted by the Grand Duke of Finland, Russian Tsar Nicholas II. But, the Finns are still proud of the gender equality.

But the main thing, of course, is the Multicolloquium itself. As you may already be aware, the LOC put a poll on this this site (Choose your preferences of sessions/symposia/workshops at the EMOP XII). For some reason, this poll has not been functioning as it should; votes keep on dropping from file. We are very sorry for this, and strive to solve the problem, but it appears to be a general one for Blogspot. However, we have followed the votes consistently, and the top topics have almost always included (top ten):

The poll is not functioning properly and can not be corrected on the blog. As a result we will move the poll shortly to an external poll, but keep the results we have got. Meanwhile, we wish to cordially thank all the voters hitherto!

We are also very grateful for the excellent suggestions given by commentators. These will be taken into account when updating the poll:

Diphyllobothrium phylogeny and host range; Cestode taxonomy, especially of fresh water fishes; Parasites and pregnancy; Sarcocystis; Evolutionary Parasitology; Sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic tests; The concept of "strongyles" and "strongylids". These are all very natural additions to the poll. And then, "Philosophical aspects of parasitism" to wide our views!

Enjoy the summer! In Turku it is now (July 26th, 2013, at 11 am) 22 ºC, and the sky is clear. See you in Turku in three years,

Friday, 8 March 2013

The
Parasitological Institute was founded by the Finnish Society of
Sciences and Letters (Societas Scientiarum Fennica) in 1963 as an
independent research institute at Åbo Akademi University. In the
1980's the Institute was integrated with the Department of Biology,
Åbo Akademi University. The Institute changed name in the 90's to
the Laboratory of Aquatic Pathobiology in order to better describe
the current activities.

In
the beginning, the main goal was to use research-generated knowledge
to help eradicate the broad tapeworm (Diphyllobotrium
latum)
from Finland. While as late as during the 50’s, the infection was
rather common, the prevalence regionally reaching even 20 %, the
disease is now rare, but not entirely eradicated. Studies showed that
pike, burbot and perch, but not vendace, whitefish or salmon
transferred the infection to humans.

Figure 1. Finnish Red Cross Diphyllobothrium
latum
combat poster from the 1950’s. Its text gives a clear warning with
a rather unprecise description of the tapeworm life cycle.

Especially
in the 70’s and 80’s, the Laboratory research was mainly focused
on zoonotic parasitic infections, but also on parasite-related fish
diseases and parasite biology.

The
activity has in recent years focused mainly on bacterial diseases in
wild and farmed fish, and the research has produced internationally
important results. Also, viral diseases in fish have been studied.
Ongoing parasitological studies have dealt with the biology and
systematics of ascaridoid nematodes, and recently also the myxozoan
parasite Henneguya
zschokkei
in farmed and wild whitefish.

The
Laboratory of Aquatic Pathobiology will continue to focus on the area
of fish health. Its research primarily serves coastal communities,
fish farming, various government agencies and the scientific
community

On
April 17th, 2013, the Laboratory will celebrate its first 50 years
with a Seminar where, among others,
Dr. Tom Wiklund will shortly present the 50-year history,
Dr. Hans-Peter Fagerholm will speak about parasitological research at
the Laboratory of Aquatic Pathobiology / Parasitological Institute,
and Prof. Arne Skorping (University of Bergen) about parasitology
yesterday, today and tomorrow. The Seminar language is mainly
Swedish/Scandinavian. The Seminar will be finished with a banquet
dinner.

Friday, 25 January 2013

Looking for some
probably existing literature in the office, I happened to encounter
an empty shoebox which I had used to collect reprint requests in.
During the latest office move, I decided to be practical and
discarded all reprint stacks of my own papers, as well as all the
(several!) reprint request cards from often far-away-countries.
Everything happens electronically nowadays, so no need to request
reprints anymore. Reprint request cards were not for the Modern
Scientist; already several years had elapsed since I received one.

But I remember just
how I felt like to receive one. Somebody, somewhere, was interested
in my work! And this person sent me a card, perhaps with a beautiful
butterfly or mosquito stamp. I did not hurry to collect it from the
mail tray before all colleagues had commented it. Put it in the
shoebox and thought maybe after the next paper I need to get another
box, perhaps a boot box. Then came the electronic full-text
databases, such as ScienceDirect, which my institution started to
subscribe. It gives an easy access to the publications in journals
from this publisher, more reading than I might ever be able to
digest. Open Access journals make it even easier. Still, there is a
problem in achieving papers in journals from many publishers the
institution does not subscribe. The library could order them, of
course, but for a fee, which is often considerably high. Publishing
is business, and the publisher of course needs the money, but does a
5-page paper really need to cost 35 €, or more?

Electronic Reprint
Request (ERR) is the easy solution. Why not send an e-mail to the
author and request an electronic Portable Document Format (.pdf) file
of the interesting article? Publishers, at least some, permit the
distribution of copies of published journal articles to research
colleagues for their personal use

Below, please
find a simple model of ERR:

Dear
Colleague

Markus
J Rantala,

I
would greatly appreciate receiving a reprint (.pdf file) of your
article entitled:

"Adiposity,
compared with masculinity, serves as a more valid cue to
immunocompetence in human mate choice"

You can easily
personalize your ERR by adding something about your own interest in
the matter:

I’m not skinny
but competent.

And
you can add your favourite parasitological stamp:

Don’t make the
error of not acquiring all the relevant literature needed in your own
research. An abstract is almost always less than an entire article.
ERR is a nice way to delight a Colleague and save money
simultaneously.